


Occupation

by Abstract_Error



Category: Bleach
Genre: Aizen Wins, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Demons, F/M, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mad Science, Psychological Torture, Romance, Science Experiments, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 19:20:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6766639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abstract_Error/pseuds/Abstract_Error
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aizen wins - and the truly terrifying thing is that he seems to be ruling better than Yamamoto ever did.  Watch as the vanquished and their uneasy conquerors alike slowly uncover how truly similar they are as Aizen reveals a plan of such monstrous ambition and disregard for morality that it could only be the work of a god.  Slow build, heavy on the philosophy and deconstruction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Uninvited Guests

 

_December 15th_

 _Day 1._

Countless attendants busied themselves amid the stalls of Central 46's assembly hall, their varied and brightly colored robes proudly displaying markings of heritage and clan. The display of such wealth and personal pride in these once sombre halls of rule would have been unthinkable just a year before, yet none thought of that, now.

Today was an extraordinary day in a remarkable year.

It was barely eight months ago that the halls had run red with the blood of Soul Society's wisest, when the traitor Sousuke Aizen had made his bid at marring history with his unprecedented crime. Few had thought that the blow he'd landed would so easily be mended then, and that so many would prove eager to take on the role of anonymous avatars of justice.

Yet, as Sereitei still reeled in shock, the noble clans had descended from their remote residences, and offered their sincere assistance in rebuilding Central 46's numbers and authority. Preserving the continuity of government was the crux, in the aftermath of the massacre, thus the offer had been accepted, and none had truly pondered how able or qualified the clan elders were, in ruling a world from which they had been serenely absent for centuries. None had even questioned why, after millennia of observed separation, the clans had rediscovered their interest in the lower courts of heaven; within months, as the Gotei braced for its Winter War, a new set of unquestionably wise legislators had been selected, and Sereitei had pushed on, with the certainty of its invulnerability and full faith in the endless patience of time.

Today, the chambers sparkled with color as the newly elected delegates, the head families of the clans and their many servants shuffled about, and took their final seats. But six hours before, a hell butterfly had arrived, bringing news of the fact that after weeks of ceaseless harassment, the traitor had taken refuge in the human world, abandoning his Hueco Mundo citadel and falling into Sereitei's trap.

Victory was at hand, and it demanded celebration.

Setting up a hero's welcome in such a brief respite had been no easy task – the decorations that the Katsumi-Oji family had ordered did not make a pleasantly balanced backdrop to the colourful feast that the Kyoraku had prepared, while the minstrels that the Shihouin had commissioned had yet to find a single tune that the Kuchiki versifiers could put words to at such short notice. Still, as the hours went by, the minor disagreements could not erase sly smiles of shared, perfect irony, for as the clans stood gathered, ready to celebrate the outcome of a war fought with swords, all knew that the true celebration they would share was of the outcome of another war, one of time, patience, and enduring tradition over foolish, untested ideals.

Of course, a few inglorious whispers still dared suggest that the clans' involvement in the day to day ruling of Sereitei was a throw back to the days which had preceded the last kingdom wars, and that Central's impartiality would become no more than a legend, as the clans regained political power to yield against each other.

Such whispers were naught but ungrateful claptrap, the clans agreed. The Shinigami of the Gotei had had erred: they had sought to separate ancient wealth and political clout from military strength and judicial power; they'd allowed untested Rukongai-born who possessed spiritual power to enter Sereitei, with no question of their loyalties. It had only been a matter of time until their foolish behaviour turned against them - in the end, with the Gotei's attention called elsewhere, the embarrassment over the ryoka invasion and Yamamoto's inability of raising a clear successor, the Shinigami should have thought themselves fortunate, and perhaps, rather than spreading whispers, they should have taken a quiet moment to contemplate upon the cyclical irony of the fact that the very man who'd broken clan rule over the court of pure souls had been forced to reinstate it.

The time for such realisations was not yet on hand, however, and none of the clans wished to rush it. Their personal glory already had been secured, and exercising it fully could wait. For now, it was glory for all.

All motion ceased, as a senkei gate unexpectedly appeared in the center of the chamber. The musicians and speakers cuttingly eyed each other, while the dignitaries hurriedly touched up their ceremonial outfits and muttered about military men not understanding common courtesies like giving a more specific time of arrival.

But as the doorway fully materialized, there was a confusing difference that only a privileged few could have caught. Instead of the simple silk and polished cherry wood door which normally appeared when one travelled to the human realm, the gateway was an unexpectedly magnificent double doorway made of embossed rosewood with crimson panels embroidered in gold. Before the few who'd recognized the passageway to the Spirit King's world could even turn their heads to exchange glances, time's endless patience ran out.

A march swelled up to the rise of the imperial music director's hands like the first rays of the sun ascending mountain slopes, stately and grand, climbing swiftly to majesty…

…then, awkwardly falling flat as Ichimaru Gin casually strolled out of the doorway, his blood drenched, drawn sword at his side. Most of the delegates did not know the man by sight, and recognition dawned upon them slowly, not eased by the fact that for some unfathomable reason, the man was in the process of awkwardly pulling on a freshly pressed uniform of a vice-captain for the 1st Division.

Those who did recognize him stood to flee.

In the shocked stillness that followed, Ichimaru Gin continued to grin from ear to ear, and slowly sheathed his sword, causing a few droplets of blood to fall to the marble floor. None moved, and, after a further moment of consideration, the silver haired man probably realised that the burden of breaking the silence lied squarely with him.

'Boy!' Gin happily chirped with a short clap of his hands, 'have I got a surprise fo' you!'

Also posted under the same account in fanfiction.net


	2. Old Friends

_December 27_

_Day 15_

* * *

Yoruichi Shihouin knew that she was not alone.

The pin-points lights of the city which stretched below the high perch of the skyscraper where she stood were dwindling in the approaching dawn. The night illumination grid would turn off at precisely six thirty in the morning, just like the day before, and the day before that. Then, after a few minutes of peace, the roads would start filling with neat, orderly rows of cars, people, children – with quaint, ordinary human lives resuming the inconsequential and blissfully ignorant flow of their existence.

Unlike the roads of Karakura Town, whose equally inconsequential and blissfully ignorant inhabitants had been reduced to ashes and brimstone in a mere heartbeat, but two weeks before.

She looked to the sky, wondering what explanation the humans had found for that – an entire city, and its hundreds of thousands of people simply erased, by no weapon they could possibly identify, and unconsciously clenched her fists to her sides.

'How did you find me?' she asked, not bothering to look over her shoulder.

'Hirako Shinji,' the kneeling figure responded, his voice muffled and rendered unrecognizable by the dark cloth mask which obscured his features; in passing, she noted that the man had been donning an Omnitskido uniform, but displaying the markings of a Shihouin soldier. 'His reiatsu has repeatedly been spotted in the Osaka prefecture over the past week.'

'I see,' Yoruichi responded, gazing into the distance. 'I do not suppose anything _else_ has been spotted in the Osaka prefecture,' she observed, managing to maintain her tone even and unconcerned, although she could still clearly sense Hollow reiatsu in the distance.

The man did not even hesitate before he answered. 'These matters are of no concern to New Central.'

_New Central,_ she thought; her reiatsu flared along with her temper, and though she stifled both quickly enough, Yoruichi immediately guessed that the brief lapse had been enough to alert Kisuke, who should have been resting below. It was unimportant, she thought, a second later. If he was awake, he would watch, but wouldn't move until he thought she might be in danger.

Yoruichi closed her eyes for a moment, taking in the smells of the still sleeping human city, and wondering if Shinji might have felt the same way as Kisuke. Perhaps he would not care, the woman told herself. Perhaps he was too busy repelling the Hollow to notice.

'Daimyo-sama,' the masked man said, bowing his forehead – despite herself, Yoruichi tensed, and felt a surge of cold disdain unlike few she'd felt in her life.

She had not been called by that title in over a century and a half, not since she'd _betrayed_ Sereitei and made her way into the human world. During that time, her esteemed clan elders had done their best to treat her existence and her actions as an unforgiveable spot on their previously unblemished history; the only reason why they had not replaced her was probably the fact that too many of them had wanted the title for themselves, but none had outright had the authority to claim it. Now, however…

Yamamoto was gone, and though none of those left behind in the human world had been able to see what had happened to Soul Society after Karakura, Yoruichi did not need much of an imagination to know what Aizen would do to the old Commander's _precious_ order, nor did she need one to know that her clan would, as always, attempt to maintain themselves on top of the spinning wheel.

It figured, she thought, stretching her lips into a thin, cutting line.

The massacre of Karakura had left her numbed, and emptied of all drive to fight further – in truth, Yoruichi told herself, there was no further rational reason to fight. History, as it coursed through her clan's veins, and as few of the others saw it, had always been forged like this. For however much Kurosaki, Ishida and Inoue might have thought differently and, for however Kisuke might have tried try to fool himself into agreeing with them, the upset in Soul Society's order that Aizen had caused was no different than what Yamamoto himself had caused not so long ago. In a past age, none had believed that the Gotei and Chamber 46 would be able to replace the noble clans' as rulers of Sereitei in the wake of the last kingdom wars, just as none had believed that the Spirit King could be done away with, now - yet, both things had come to pass, and the world had not come undone at the seams. The only thing that made this war different from the previous ones was that it had been fought in Hueco Mundo and the human world instead of Soul Society itself.

Aizen and Yamamoto… the only true difference there was Aizen had been more creative and hadn't bothered with pretending he had better morals.

The Shihouin clan admired that in a man, Yoruichi thought. She distantly remembered that she did, too.

'What do you want?' Yoruichi curtly asked; the man did not lift his forehead, but stretched out his arm, offering her a tightly wrapped parchment, with an adorned, golden seal. She hesitated before taking it, then paused after breaking the seal, holding the paper by its very edges, as if she'd feared the rows of precisely etched letters would seep off the page, and stain her fingers.

Reading them nearly stained her soul.

The letter, signed in the names of twenty of her clan's elders, assured her that by Aizen- _sama_ 's grace, the Shihouin house stood unscathed, in continued health, good fortune, and good repute; New Central had assumed the heavy burden of its responsibilities with such wisdom and grace as none of the rulers before it had, causing little upset in the natural order of Sereitei, and wisely placing its trust in those who had _always_ shared Aizen- _sama'_ s healthy skepticism of the separation between the noble clans and the powers of the Gotei.

Further, New Central would not forego the manpower and wealth that the clans could bring to bear in the swift and peaceful establishment of an optimistic new order, and it was with great joy that the Shihouin had accepted a place of great honour and privilege within it…

Youruichi gritted her teeth and looked away.

Of course, she thought. What else? Not even Aizen could dream of ruling Sereitei alone. Winning a battle was not the same as securing an enduring position on top of society: one couldn't hope to take on an entire world alone, unless one wanted to thoroughly crush it. And Aizen had never wanted that, Yoruichi considered, looking at the parchment, though its fine letters trembled before her eyes. Aizen wanted subjects, not corpses – a triumph was hardly a triumph if there weren't any spectators to admire it.

It was doubly wise because attaining the submission of Sereitei would never be achievable if he only employed his Hollow contingents; true, in terms of numbers and perhaps even strength, the Arrancar were not a negligible tool, but _policing_ was different from warfare, and it was doubtful that passage though the Hogyoku had instilled the savage Hollow with sufficient human reason to recognize the difference. Where then could Aizen find a troop that was sufficient in numbers, and who could be ruthless and heavy handed without being outright bloodthirsty? More importantly, who could blend in and present the Shinigami with an ambivalent target?

How convenient then that each of the noble clans had fighters in their hundreds, men and women who possessed no loyalty to the Gotei, and no sympathy for the Shinigami of the lower courts…

_What could he have offered in exchange?_ Yoruichi wondered, grinning inwardly as she swiftly came upon the answer. _Continued health, good fortune and good repute. Of course._

'Have the Kuchiki accepted _this?_ ' she asked, holding the letter out.

'The Katsoumi-Oji have, from the first hour,' the messenger responded. 'The Kyoraku are still in negotiations…'

'That is not what I asked,' Yoruichi said. 'Have the Kuchiki…'

'They too are still negotiating,' the man dryly answered; Yoruichi lowered her glance, and unwillingly nodded. There was no way of ascertaining that the man was telling the truth; on the one hand, Kuchiki Byakuya had always kept himself on a stiff moral high horse, and was not a man to easily surrender. On the other, his persona had always been split between his duty as head of clan and his duties towards the Gotei, and he'd often let his sense of family honour take precedence over the Gotei's business and interests.

It did not matter, Yoruichi thought. If Aizen had yet again muddied the waters between Sereitei and the noble clans, the specter of the Kuchiki heightening their influence should have been concerning to any Shihouin, and too good a blackmail weapon for either Aizen or her clan elders to pass on. Under the circumstances, the truth became irrelevant, much like everything else.

For now, the letter continued, the armed guard of the Shihouin had been given the quarters of the 1st Division, while their _special_ contingent had been openly welcomed back to the ranks of the Omnitskido. A new age of opportunity awaited all those who were ready to welcome it; it was the time for the Shihouin heiress to further strengthen her family's position, and act upon the chance of making herself useful to Aizen- _sama_ before the Kuchiki heir did.

She smiled, and shook her head.

New Central, the letter casually continued, was in the process of revising Central 46's previous judicial edicts; it was not unlikely that in sign of recognition to the Shihouin's wisdom, Yoruichi's name would officially be cleared, and she would be allowed to return with the full honour her rank and heritage befitted. Unofficially, New Central had gone as far as to indicate that depending on Yoruichi's level of commitment further _pardons_ could be issued as well, for it was the time for those who had been unfairly treated by Yamamoto to stand together and slowly resolve past differences.

The chance, the clan elders wrote in a harsh change of tone, was too great to miss, even by one who'd scarcely demonstrated wisdom in her past dealings. The window of opportunity was narrow. If they acted before the Kuchiki did, the Shihouin would completely upstage them, and grasp the possibility of negotiating their military strength past previous, artificially imposed quotas. Being allowed direct intervention rights into Sereitei was already a huge step forward, and more than the clan had gained in the past two thousand years of Yamamoto's rule.

In case of a refusal, the family, whose prospects had been severely handicapped by Yoruichi's past indiscretions, and whose patience, kindness and loyalty had been stretched to its farthest limits, would have to consider her continued position as clan leader under the sternest of terms.

As, indeed, would New Central.

The parchment had ended at that, and it made perfect sense. Threats didn't require such things as politeness anyway.

'The offer will stand for a week,' the man said, keeping his forehead bowed. 'Daimyo-sama, I have been urged to impress upon you…'

'Since when do messengers deliver orders?' Yoruichi snarled, spinning about herself. The man shirked under the implied threat of her reiatsu, but firmly held his position.

'The offer will stand for one week,' the messenger repeated.

Unseen Hollow wailed in the distance, then vanished; Yoruichi sensed the closing of the Garganta as if her ears had popped at a change in pressure after a swift descent. Not a moment too soon, she thought, once more turning to face the milky white horizon. The electrical lights of the city below fizzled and turned off, in the arrogant assumption that the time of ghosts was over, and real life was getting ready to begin.

That, Yoruichi knew, was just another illusion; since Aizen's ascension, Hollow had been pouring in by the hundreds, sometimes in numbers so great that not even Ishida's bow could keep them at bay, and certainly not for too long. The attacks were not strong, perhaps because Hueco Mundo had been emptied of its most powerful entities, and the Hollow who crossed were simply seeking to flee the wars of the rising dominant creatures. Nonetheless, the barriers had become so porous that Hollow invasions manifested almost every other night, without reprieve.

The small troop which had confronted Aizen had been forced to scatter, their wounds still unhealed and their hearts led by nothing but grief, and bitter, immediate sense of purpose. Half of the Vaizard and Kurosaki had remained north, while Yoruichi and Kisuke, along with Ishida and the rest of the Vaizard had thought it wise to go further south, where none knew them and where Kisuke could attempt to re-create his passages into Sereitei without arousing immediate suspicion.

Yoruichi wondered whether he was doing that because he thought the pursuit had merit or because he could not bring himself to let the _children_ down, just yet. She suspected him of the latter, but could not truly blame him, the woman thought. Kurosaki, Ishida and Inoue were human, and the massacre of Karakura had brought about the very real loss of family and friends; unlike Yoruichi, Urahara and the Vaizard, they'd lost the present and all their hopes for the future.

She sighed.

All the young humans had left now was their hope for revenge, and though he'd never said as much, Kisuke was probably pressing with his work just because he could not bear telling them that Aizen was, by now, well and truly out of their reach. That it was over.

From any perspective, staying behind when her first and best instinct was to go as far away from the group and as deep into hiding as she possibly could had been foolish. Yoruichi had never been one for sentimentalism; she'd been born and bred to ignore it, and always followed her practical sense – she'd certainly seen enough betrayal and defeat to be hardened against both. They – no, she reminded herself, the Gotei, Yamamoto's Gotei had lost the war, a war that, from their perspective, had never included her, or Kisuke, or the Vaizard, or the foolish human children who'd aligned themselves to a side without understanding what they were getting into. It had not…it should not have been _her_ war, to either fight or lose.

'Who is heading the Omnitskido?' she asked, lifting her chin and allowing the warm morning light to caress her features.

'The Cuarta Espada, Ulquiorra Schiffer,' the messenger replied.

'Soi Fon?' Yoruichi inquired, then shook her head, involuntarily running her hand over her face. 'No, don't,' she hastily added, dismissing her own question. 'Don't…never mind.'

'Aizen-sama has privately indicated that he may be amenable to returning the Omnitskido to Shihouin control, in time,' the man said, not guessing the true intent behind her question.

'The human world…' she began, looking out on the living city which stretched all around them, but seeing nothing but the ashen ruins of Karakura.

Indeed, the human world…when had she grown so attached to it? Yoruichi wondered.

'The human world is not a prerogative of the Shihouin clan,' the messenger dryly interrupted.

'But _I_ am a Shinigami,' the woman breathed, turning to face him.

'With all due respect, Daimyo-sama,' he responded, for the first time lifting his chin to meet her fiery glance, 'that is not true. You have not been a Shinigami for a century and a half.' The incomprehension in his eyes was so sincere that it was impossible to grudge.

Yoruichi Shihouin had never been one for sentimentalism, so she found it hard to accept that her heart was breaking. She remained silent for a few moments longer, not wondering why she was unable to entertain any thoughts but the fact that it hadn't been her war to fight, that it had not been her war to lose; the world Aizen had conquered had brutally expelled her, she'd owed the Gotei nothing, and yet…

'You may tell those who sent you…' she began, feeling uncertain of her voice. 'You may tell them that I understand their choices.'

'Daimyo-sama?' the messenger asked, softly shaking his head.

'That is all,' Yoruichi said, nodding to herself.

The man stood and straightened, then stiffly bowed to her turned back; just like the elders, he did not feel the need say a farewell, nor did he address her by her title before he vanished. She suspected it was because the man already knew she no longer possessed it.

Her long hair fluttering about her features, Yoruichi remained on the roof, distractedly listening to the sound of traffic which rose from below; she noticed that it had started to snow – a wide, light flake rested upon her cheek, lingering there for a second before the warmth of her skin turned it into a droplet of clear water. It ran along her cheekbone, and clung to her chin for a second, before dropping onto her sleeve.

She knew she was still not alone.

Snowflakes danced wildly in the hot steam which rose from the small bowl of noodles that Urahara Kisuke offered her, before he sat by her side, on the edge of the roof.

'Yoruichi-san,' he greeted, in his lightly unconcerned, nasal tone.

'Kisuke,' she nodded.

He passed her the chopsticks.

'I will need to leave you for a while,' Yoruichi said, softly; the man nodded in his turn, his gaze obscured by the rim of his hat. 'My clan may prove a hazard to us all, and I do not wish to expose any of you to business that is only my own. I shall be back in due time.'

'Kurosaki will be most disappointed,' he casually answered.

'I know,' Yoruichi shrugged. She put the chopsticks aside, and took a sip of the soup. The noise of engines and horns, and the indistinguishable voices of humans floated upwards in the wind, along with the snowflakes. 'Aizen will not be coming for any of us, Kisuke.' She said. 'We no longer matter. Perhaps we never truly did.'

It was Urahara's turn to answer 'I know.'


	3. Sic Transit

_January 1_ _st_

_Occupation week 3_

* * *

_' _Sic transit…_ ' Stark sighed, to no one in particular._

'What ya say?' Lilinette perked; the man looked down at her, and attempted to smile.

The Primera Espada, in its separated aspects, sat on the roof of the 13th Division's captain quarters, under a clear sky, and facing the east as it slowly brightened with the pre-dawn light. The still bare branches of trees reached towards the sky, rising among an orderly stretch of tiled roofs, and patches of gardens. There was no sand in sight, and the night smelled of snow.

'Sic transit gloria mundi,' Stark repeated, a little bit louder. 'Thus passes the glory of the world,' he explained, a second and a painful nudge later. 'Ow, Lilinette.' He weakly and belatedly protested.

'Well, quit talking in tongues,' she muttered, leaning her shoulders on his chest. This time, he smiled in earnest, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. ''sides,' she added, after nestling close, 'I dunno why you always gotta be so _self depreciated_ …'

Stark laughed, and kissed her forehead. 'Self- _deprecating_ ,' he corrected.

'Ya know what I mean,' Lilinette shrugged. 'Is not like they lost, Stark, it's that we won.'

His answer tarried overly long, and his silence made her fidget; she did not prod him, however, and though he was assured her first nudge had bruised his ribs, Stark wished she would have. Lilinette settled on gently caressing his arm, her tiny fingers unconsciously grazing over the slim, black cross that lay on his wrist, as if seeking to remind him that his sense of victory should have been twofold, and that in true, cruel irony a Hollow who'd once been a Quincy now stood over the defeated court of pure souls.

The evergreen hedges which lined their beautiful new garden rustled in the wind.

'We won,' she confidently affirmed. He conceded with a half nod, and distantly wondered why, although he felt terribly tired, he did not feel sleepy.

'Three hundred years…' he whispered, doing no more than thinking out loud. Lilinette nodded, knowing what he'd intended to say. They had been together for three hundred years, in Hueco Mundo, and in the time before that, in a human life that still evaded her memories, but was painfully present in his.

Back when he'd a mother and a father, a country and a clan.

Back when he'd had dreams and ideals: a revolution against an earthly tyrant and an insurrection against a heavenly one.

Back when he'd had her.

During those centuries after, life, or rather existence, had seen them both through many transformations – Stark remembered those, too, from his evolution to Adjucha and the moment he'd recovered his sense of self, to the time when their joint reiatsu had pushed them over the threshold to Vasto Lorde, and then, through the final one, which had seen Aizen and his miraculous gem returning them to as human a form as was still possible

One might have thought that all that would be tiresome enough to warrant a fifty year long nap, yet…

Yet, here they stood.

Not on the threshold to a new evolution, but beyond it; this latest… _last_ of all changes, Stark forced himself to think, had come about almost without warning. He had not thought that Aizen would win. Not really.

He'd joined God's cause for lack of choice, at first; if one learned anything in Hueco Mundo, it was that standing in the way of a hurricane was distinctly unwise. Stark himself had not even initially trusted the man's promises of removing their masks and restoring their complete human bodies. Lilinette had thought differently, but then…

He held her tighter.

…but then, she'd had a better reason to trust, or rather, be hopeful. Her Adjucha form had been incorporeal light, and the transition to Vasto Lorde had neither returned her body, nor her memory. Though they'd become one, they'd continued to manifest different powers and different appearances, and she had not changed.

Stark's mouth twisted into a jagged, bitter line.

He wondered if she'd offered her reiatsu to him as he lay dying after some long forgotten battle and he had done something wrong in the process of assimilation – the remnants of his Quincy reiatsu absorption powers, combined with his Hollow hunger functioned even without his conscious intervention. _This_ alone, he could not truly remember, but he imagined that his body had greedily consumed hers, as if she had been any other source of energy, any other prey.

Or maybe, it was because even as one, they had not had sufficient energy for both of their forms, or maybe, just maybe, the man thought, unconsciously caressing her hair, because the fact that her soul remembered its half, her mind still did not, and without memory, Lilinette herself could not reconstitute her human shape.

Regardless of how it happened, she'd lost a key part of her being and she desperately wanted it back. He'd wanted it back too, enough to take the first and only leap of faith he'd taken in three centuries of existence as Hollow. And for a too brief time, it looked as if it might have truly worked. They had not even noticed that the gem had failed them, at first. They'd both simply rejoiced at her finally physical presence, and only later realized they'd escaped from one trap only to fall into another, maybe even more painful one. Stark looked down to her, the weight of the pain and disappointment so great that he could not even sigh.

Lilinette's human body was that of an eleven year old, though she had died at fifteen, or sixteen. This too he could not remember exactly, but it did not much matter. He'd probably never truly known, and she hadn't really known either - in the world in which they'd lived, people of Lilinette's class were lucky if they knew their approximate age, as it had been long before civilization, records, or the notion that the poor were different from cattle.

The only thing that did matter was the brutal realization that nothing, not even the intervention of a man who deemed himself a God could return the final five years of her life to her memory. Those final few years, when she'd stopped being a child Stark deeply cared for, and become the woman he loved and wished to marry, the other half of his soul – those years were gone, well and truly erased…The Shinigami's gem had not been able to undo the harm the other Shinigami had done, in his passage, and Lilinette herself, as she had once been, was lost, stolen..

He looked away, towards the gentle gold of the approaching sunrise.

He hadn't thought Aizen could win.

No - what Stark had hoped for, when he'd crossed into the human world, was that revenge against the arrogant Gotei would cauterize some of the old wounds and give him respite from the hurricane which had been raging in his chest for the best part of three centuries of existence as Hollow, and, the man thought, lowering his glance to the cross on his wrist, even before that. He'd hoped to see Yamamoto die – he'd hoped to see _Shinigami_ die, regardless of the colour of their uniform, just punishment for the judgment they had blindly passed upon all of the things Stark's dominant soul remembered having cared for…

'Ya OK?' Lilinette asked, crooking her neck to look upwards. 'You're shivering.'

'Bit cold,' he said, not really lying. But for her warmth, his chest might have felt as if it had been cast in ice. She questioningly stared at him for a moment longer – then, her eye narrowed, and her pretty features sharpened into a frown.

'Ya thinking of crap,' she flatly declared.

'It's been known to happen,' Stark joked; Lilinette arched an eyebrow, looking so comically sarcastic that he could not withhold a chuckle.

'Well, don't think of crap then,' she commanded; the phrase did not quite work, and her expression softened. 'Oh, come on,' she muttered. 'Don't get like that. Ya got the old geezer, right?'

Yes, Stark thought, he'd gotten the old geezer. Shikeguni Yamamoto Genryusai, 21st Captain Commander of the Gotei, most proficient fighter known to Soul Society, artisan of the final Quincy genocide and a man who'd rained heavenly injustice and arbitrary cruelty on all but his own kind, was dead. True, it had been Aizen to finish him off, but Stark had never been one to care for such menial detail. He'd simply watched the wretched creature's decrepit body fall from the skies where it had lingered for far too long, and shot Lilinette's metraletta with the same fury he would have put behind shooting Ginrei Kojaku centuries before; the sight of ashes scattering in the winds, after two lifetimes of stifling hatred, should have brought peace.

It had not.

'I didn't get the _other_ one,' he said, through gritted teeth.

_Ukitake Jūshirō…_

The girl sighed, and clumsily rubbed his arm. Her touch barely registered against the blaze of hatred that always sat waiting to be sparked by any mention of the man's name.

'I don't remember him,' Lilinette softly said. 'But I know Stark remembers,' she added, in a whisper, making Stark think that it was moments like these that he dreaded the most, moments when _she_ , who'd died an innocent, felt such unjustified regret.

'He judged you,' Stark said in soft rebuke. Lilinette simply nodded.

'Yeah, you told me,' she answered; it was his turn to nod.

For the first century of their existence, even after they'd become one, Lilinette's mind had had an odd, porous quality – it could absorb tremendous amounts of information in an amazingly short time, yet, like an overfull sponge, it would quickly drain and lose all of it before the next awakening. He'd found it painful, at first, even more so because he'd sensed that some trace amounts of it, never more than hints, sometimes lingered, causing her to suffer at the absence of words she'd mastered the day before, and wander aimlessly about trains of thought which she could not complete. Then, he had taught himself to be grateful for the lapses of her memory. At least she was spared the pain of remembering, of really knowing just what kind of existence she'd been forced into thanks to Ukitake's judgment.

With the passage of time, however, Lilinette's mind had begun to solidify, and she'd become able to preserve recent memories – at first. Then, as decades passed, the lapses had become fewer and further between, and she'd become able to remember longer and longer periods of time.

And this, she knew.

She did not remember, but she knew how it had all come to pass; she knew that he had loved her enough to wish to take her away from the fate of servitude that others had chosen for her, and she knew that she had died in his brief absence, victim to a human century of splendid ignorance, and the callousness of the humans around her. She knew that she'd refused to leave, and she understood that he had had no power to help her rejoin the cycle.

That he, as a Quincy, could only erase Hollow, not _judge_ them.

That he had chosen her above his clan and called the Shinigami, hoping against hope that their rules would be fair to this one single soul, who'd been wronged by everything else. Instead, she had been sent to hell before Ukitake and the rest turned their attentions to slaughtering the last of the European clans.

And now, yet again proving that some were truly beyond justice, Ukitake refused to die… captured in Kyoka Suigetsu's web as he futilely tried to save Karakura and kept alive because Aizen thought keeping the man alive would be 'useful'.

Stark swallowed the bile that rose in the back of his throat, attempting to focus away; it should have been over, the man scolded himself. It should have been over, but despite the fact that they had finally crossed, and Hueco Mundo lied squarely behind them, his sense of incredulity stubbornly lingered.

Neither of them truly knew what they'd been waiting for on the roof of the 13th Division's captain quarters. As usual, Lilinette, who held all answers, guessed it first, and chuckled, slipping her small fingers between his.

'Would ya look at that,' she giggled, prodding him in the exact same place where she'd prodded him before, and making him jolt. 'Sunrise!'

_Sunrise._

The horizon turned blue, then red, then gold, all colours that the Primera had thought lost. Stars winked away, and the world was slowly filled with the green of leaves, the white lime of walls and the quaint, rust tinted tiled roofs, spreading into the distance.

'Sunrise,' Stark repeated.

He felt little but the warmth of her hand and the weight of her narrow shoulders against his chest.

'Our first sunrise!' Lilinette excitedly exclaimed. Stark had to bite his tongue.

_No, Lilinette_ , he might have said. _There were sunrises before this one._

Sokyoku Hill projected a tall, lumbering shadow, much as the one cast by the unnatural towers of Las Noches. The shadow spun slowly as the sun rose, like the hand of a clock seamlessly passing through to the beginning of a new cycle of time.

'It's over. We won,' Lilinette decided, suddenly turning around and putting her arms about his shoulders. 'We won, Stark.'

He closed his eyes and returned the embrace, feeling her joy as he seldom still felt anything else. Sereitei was still and frightened in the wavering light of dawn.

_Sic transit Gloria mundi_ , he thought.

The court of no-longer-pure souls sprawled beneath them, as the shadow of Aizen-sama's new seat of power stretched above. Yamamoto was dead…

'I love you,' Lilinette said. She meant it, but she didn't know what it meant.

Yamamoto was dead, but Ukitake Jūshirō was looking upon this new dawn, too.

Stark gazed at the Shinigami's world through narrowed eyes, and the hatred that raged hurricanes through his chest refused to abate.

_I'm not sure how much we've won, Lilinette,_ he thought. _But at least I will surely teach him that they've lost._

* * *

Many thanks all for reading and commenting :)

Up Next - The Prologue, in its three aspects, is done, and it's time to get to work :)


	4. Monday

 

__Monday, February 2nd_ _

_Occupation Month Two_

* * *

 

He awoke with the same eerie feeling of not having truly left the nightmare; it had lingered on his skin and in his heart for the past six weeks. He opened his eyes, and stared at the ceiling that he did not wish to recognise for a few long, excruciating minutes, taking in the long, polished beams, and the poisonous green-yellow yeast stains that blossomed on the white lime towards the northern, dark corner of the room.

Those, he recognised all too well.

He'd studied them attentively the first time he'd awoken in this room, and his attention to them had not dulled since - he knew still what they had looked like on the first day, when they were naught more than a suspicion of colour. Since then, they'd grown and spread, nurtured by the darkness and humidity in the chamber, and he could have described each minute variation in the stains' diameter and frazzled contours, for he'd often wondered how long it would take for the fungus to finally grow bold enough to begin its task, start flowering and stretching, then send its poisonous spores into his lungs.

In the beginning, Ukitake Jūshirō distantly recalled, he'd wondered if the fungus had been yet another of Aizen's endless little ironies; the brief time which had passed had taught him that it was not. It was only fair, then, that he'd dispense so much tender attention to it; the yeast was, after all, his only ally in this house, which was his cell in all but name.

It was the one thing that could still kill him, in this new world, where all other means of escape from the nightmare were utterly denied.

Sousuke Aizen's struggles in the King's Dimension had taken less than an eye blink, less than a breath - though in a reality that was not dominated by Kyoka Suigetsu's will, the struggle might have lasted years, Ukitake's memory of the combat had vanished altogether. The only thing that he recalled was that one moment, he'd been standing on a sudden rim of light, glancing incredulously at his mentor's falling corpse. On the next, he'd closed his eyes, only to reopen them in this room, and make the acquaintance of the yeast stains which flowered in the northern corner of the ceiling – not by courtesy of Sousuke Aizen, but by the ironic courtesy of the Primera Espada, who wished Ukitake dead nearly as much as Ukitake himself sometimes did. Not for cowardice, and not even for the sheer tiredness that often entangled his body in wet, stifling shrouds - for the sheer shame of having survived not the fall, but the perversion of the world he'd once taken pride in creating.

He'd not survived alone.

The many columns which had, for millennia, formed the spine of Soul Society had not crumbled as one, either. They stood, becoming morphed and twisted, proving that Sousuke Aizen knew where to strike as well as he knew where not to.

The Gotei, Aizen had smilingly assured his prisoners, would stand – the shards of its now empty shell had been summoned under the clean and freshly pressed banner of the 1st Division. Ukitake Jūshirō wished that the occasion had carried some overt threat of force, yet even the outright evidence of that had been denied to the few survivors. Rumours of the fact that Kuchiki Rukia was being held had surfaced only a week after five of the six surviving captains of the Gotei had been welcomed into the assembly hall with mock ceremony, but Ukitake had doubted that the fact that his sister was a hostage had held more sway on Kuchiki Byakuya's surrender than the knowledge that his own siblings and their families had been similarly rounded. As painful as they might have been, the vulgar personal threats had been no more than pointless theatrical accents – perhaps designed to seed the first doubts of their superiors' attachments in the hearts of the common Shinigami – upon the larger and unspeakable threat of full extermination of Sereitei and permanent shattering of the cycle…

If, indeed, any hopes of the cycle's preservation could still be entertained, Ukitake bitterly thought.

The only one of the surviving captains who'd not attended Aizen's inauguration had been Zaraki Kenpachi, but the fact that the 11th Division had barricaded itself within its barracks had perfectly served the interests of the Gotei's new command – _New Central_ had no further need of the 11th Division's particular brand of talents. Its quarters had been razed to the ground from above, and the few who'd not perished the devastating barrage of Cero and Barra had fallen to the combined efforts of the Primera and Segunda Espada, with such ridiculous ease and speed that not even their reputation had had a chance of survival. The Kenpachi himself had fallen a day later, gloriously massacring hundreds of Numeros before finally being being overwhelmed. He, at least, had proved his reputation right, though none remained to honour his heroic final battle. The only thing that mattered, in the end, was the fact that the Cuarta Espada's energy spear, cowardly shot from behind the massive Shinigami, had put a dry end to the legend of Kenpachi's supposed immortality. He'd died and been disintegrated, just like everyone else.

The Divisions that the war had left without captains – the 7th, the 9th, the 10th – had been disarmed and dissolved, their barracks emptied to make place for the of thousands of Arrancar and Numeros under the Segunda Espada's command. Their vice-captains, still deemed useful, perhaps, still dear enough to Ichimaru Gin and Kaname Tousen to be considered Aizen's gifts, perhaps…perhaps, another accent, another attempt at creating the illusion of treacherous harmony… had been the only ones who'd been allowed to keep their zanpakutoh. Among the others who still stood in the wretched divisions, those who'd dared raise their heads in the storm had rapidly lost them, and soon, those who still dared resist the exodus had not even been rewarded with death in battle. Instead, New Central had chosen to manifest its overwhelming power by taking all rebels alive to execute them later, along with their families – the walls of the 10th had become a display case for hundreds of hanged bodies, which had kept for weeks in the cold weather.

Still, it had been Aizen's will for the maimed and crippled Gotei to survive Yamamoto, just as it had been his wish for the Omnitskido to survive Soi Fon's summary execution; her throat had been slit from behind, in the captain's Assembly Hall and before all of her stunned companions. Kyoraku Shunsui, who'd been standing by her side, had barely had time to put the hand on the hilt of his sword, yet, though he'd failed to protect her, his reaction speed had been remarkable. Nothing, not even a change in Aizen's tone of voice had announced his intent – he'd continued to smile kindly, and softly speak the outline of his plans as Soi Fon had limply fallen to the floor. The body had been left to linger for just long enough for him to savor his former companions' outrage, and then removed with deliberate method; all had known that a thing so frail did not need to be removed from the scene by four who, but the clearly visible Shihouin markings on their masks, could have been mistaken for Omnitskido operatives.

And thus, Ukitake thought, passed the glory of the world – thirteen, to ten, by treason. Ten, to six, by war, then…Of six, two had been killed, and four had been sentenced to stand as the tattered silk gloves upon the iron fists of the unwanted new power, in yet another, perfect and deliberate choice. Kuchiki Byakuya, as the standing leader of a clan that needed to be brought to its knees; Unohana Retsu, as proof of the new Captain Commander's kindness and generosity towards one who'd always been kind and generous; himself and Kyoraku Shunsui…

Ukitake felt a coughing fit approaching, and pressed his crossed arms to his chest. He was cold.

…himself and Kyoraku, allowed to survive as twisted symbols of endurance, for Sereitei's new master did not wish to fully erase the old world. Merely, to pervert it in the image of his own creation – a hybrid Gotei, which was neither Shinigami nor Hollow, under the rule of a hollowfied Shinigami; the remaining divisions fronted by their old leaders, but placed under the de facto command…in the _shadow…_ of Aizen's Espada.

The day of Aizen's first appearance as Captain Commander had been the last time when Ukitake Jūshirō had seen his fellow captains assembled. Though they'd been placed on the roster of the New Central, and symbolic seats had been preserved for them on the long oval table which now occupied the center of the Assembly Hall, the four remaining Shinigami captains had had their freedom of movement restricted to whatever premises their individual shadows had chosen to provide. Communication between them, as well as direct communication to their divisions had been strictly forbidden; an intercepted letter between Kuchiki Byakuya and Kyoraku Shunsui had made the consequences of disobedience quite clear – more limp and frozen bodies, one for each ten Shinigami of the 6th and 8th , had adorned the desolate walls of the former tenth, and Abarai Renji had reputedly suffered for days before he'd been allowed a merciful end.

The disappearance of Kira Izuru and Hisagi Shuuhei, which had occurred a few days after they'd been assigned to the service of the reformed 1st Division, had prompted a further wave of bloody retaliation. House arrest had only allowed rumours of the carnage which had ripped through the helpless and unarmed ranks of their former companions in the 3rd and 9th to reach Ukitake; in the wake of the two desertions, Matsumoto Rangiku too had disappeared without a trace, and though Ukitake guessed she had not been killed, he could not help but thinking that her fate, in whatever seclusion, and at the mercy of Ichimaru Gin, might have been worse than death.

Ukitake himself had been left to linger for long weeks, the expectation and lack of information was as excruciating as anything he had ever experienced. The Primera, who'd barely even made contact since he'd occupied the Captain's quarters and ordered Ukitake to his forced domicile, had not even thought the 13th worthy of a public appearance. Deprived of any other recourse and often only notified of new measures minutes before he was expected to respond to them, Ukitake had found himself in an all but inescapable position, and tried to keep the retaliation against his Division to a minimum Not because he'd felt defeated, or because he'd felt that there were no battles left to fight, but because he'd thought it wiser that once the time for battle came again, there should be someone left to fight it. Orders of forced relocation, followed by the confiscations of Zanpakutoh had finally reached the 13th a week before; it seemed as if Aizen's more powerful hybrids were indeed numerous enough to overtake the Shinigami, and further room had to be procured – above all the disgust which mimicked the fungus and stretched across his soul, however, Ukitake had learned to fear that the Primera's hatred for him would take the form of rampant and non-directional cruelty towards the 13th. Ill winds and dark rumors told of what had been happening on other Division grounds, and that the new Omnitskido, headed by the Cuarta Espada, and reinforced by the Shihouin clan, never allowed the walls of the 10th to run out of fresh corpses.

Some of those had indeed been rebels, but the bodies of plusses had been strung up too, when they'd not been consumed by the invaders; the Segunda Espada, Ukitake had guessed, considered that force and terror were the easiest means of bringing an entire world to its knees, and Aizen would not have disapproved.

The door to his chamber was brusquely pulled aside, and the bone covered face of one of God's new creatures appeared, without warning.

'The Primera wants you,' it said, dryly, then, not even awaiting an answer, it had pulled the thin, yellowish Shouji screen in place.

Ukitake did not move immediately, his glance lingering sorrowfully on the ceiling, and registering the infinitesimal new developments that this new day and night had brought to the green-yellowish stains of hope for death on the ceiling. He'd been allowed to live.

If any of this could, indeed, be called - life.

* * *

As always, it was not the sight of the transformation that his old quarters had undergone since they'd been occupied by Aizen's Primera to strike him. The changes had only shocked Ukitake the first time around; although he had never assumed that he had been that attached to his furniture and decorations - all things, menial things, in the end - Ukitake remembered that he'd felt an inordinate amount of pain at noting that his desk, the simple one that he'd kept through all the five hundred years of his captaincy had been removed.

He also vaguely remembered that the first time he'd entered, and before he'd once more met the icy blue glance of the creature who had taken over his office, he'd allowed himself to imagine he could have at least asked that desk to be moved to his new apartments.

He was glad he hadn't. This man, Ukitake thought, steeling himself for what would follow, was not going to grant him any favours, now, or until the end of time.

The Arrancar's hatred was tangible each time, and it vibrated in every particle of his oppressive reiatsu, giving the air itself a terrifying, hostile consistency. Crossing the threshold to his former office felt to Ukitake as if he had suddenly been submerged in some form of viscous, cold fluid, that allowed him to breathe simply because each breath was poison, and, in itself, constituted some form of revenge.

The two had interacted very little thus far - partly because Aizen's attentions had only recently turned on the 13th , but partly because the very sight of Ukitake Jūshirō visibly made Stark's skin crawl. The Arrancar had not even taken pleasure in telling the Shinigami that he wished him dead, and why; in truth, as soon as the Arrancar had communicated his reasons, Ukitake had understood what Stark must have felt upon seeing him above Karakura Town, and, in a corner of his heart, even wondered how he might have felt in the other man's place.

Still true to his nature, Ukitake had not, for a single moment doubted that the loss he had caused Stark centuries before had been real; though traditional thought outright denied that Hollow were capable of feeling, Ukitake chose to believe the evidence which lay before his eyes. He'd caught a very few, precious and furtive glances of Stark with Lilinette, and those had been enough for him to know that the two undeniably shared love.

Even more, and without needing further explanations, Ukitake had grasped that through all of the long centuries that had passed since the day on which he had judged the young girl, and Sogyo no Kotowari had deemed her too volatile for a place in the heavens, Stark and Lilinette had never truly stopped losing. That Stark was still losing now, with every day that passed, and that, in Stark's heart and mind, Ukitake was the cause of a fracture that would never truly heal.

Though he could not truly regret his judgment's outcome, the Shinigami still felt the others' pain, and genuinely regretted having caused it. Under different circumstances, he supposed he might have chastised himself for his inward hypocrisy - the fact that he acknowledged this one soul's circumstances, and still could bear the child he'd faced above Karakura no ill-will, did nothing to change the fact that he could not doubt his past judgment, nor deny his past fights and actions...and it was perhaps this very fact, which Stark, in turn, instinctively understood, that fed the Arrancar's hatred.

Yes, Ukitake thought, willing himself to meet Stark's glance. In the Primera's stead, he might have wished himself dead as well.

What made the entire situation even more painful was the fact that Ukitake had seen enough of Stark to understand that favours big and small could perhaps have been negotiated by anyone else but him; the man was perfectly content sleeping through half of his days and reading through half of his nights. In fact, each time that he entered his former office, Ukitake noticed that the pile of books which lay scattered aside the oddly shaped couch which had replaced his desk grew ever taller. The titles, which ranged through authors Ukitake had never heard of, but covered everything from history to philosophy to odd and long western poetry told him that this Hollow understood and felt far more than his condition might have led to suggest. Half drunk bottles of red wine also told Ukitake that under different circumstances, the Primera and Shunsui might not have had a hard time in finding some sort of common ground, some form of communication, that, in fact, Stark might have been a reasonable, perhaps even accommodating individual, and not a monster that vibrated with nothing else but hatred and pointless desire for revenge.

The monster that Ukitake alone awakened each time, without fail, and the monster that Aizen was clearly counting on.

He drew a deep breath.

'There seems to be some trouble with the housing arrangements in the Division grounds,' Stark said, not bothering with a greeting, and barely peering over the cover of his book.

Biding for time and courage, Ukitake slowly pulled the Shoji screen shut behind him.

'What manner of trouble?' he asked, at length.

'The - your people are not moving out manner of trouble,' the Arrancar had shrugged. He then straightened, yawned, and lay his book lazily aside, to gaze at Ukitake with malicious amusement. 'But - I suspect you already knew that, since at least three families had hand-written permissions to remain, issued by you, and I believe quite a few others are expecting that you will do the same for them.'

Ukitake remained silent, sustaining the Arrancar's leer and not denying his intuition.

'Do you expect me to apologise?' the Shinigami asked, at long length.

'No, of course not,' Stark answered, with another lazy shrug, 'though I feel at least mildly insulted by the fact that you thought I would not notice. I do, however, expect you to retract your leave to remain notes and proceed with the relocations as it was decided.'

'It is only three families out of four hundred...' Ukitake began, impotent anger boiling in his voice.

'It's the first time that you are asked to implement something,' the Arrancar responded, narrowing his eyes. 'I am unsure whether you should create difficulties at the very first opportunity, and set an unpleasant start to our...long, and I am assured, fruitful collaboration.'

'One of the three is an old, retired man that has been on these grounds since before I was captain. He and his wife pleaded to be left to end their life in the house where they lived it,' Ukitake hotly interrupted.

Indeed, the Shinigami thought, allowing his hope to get the best of him, this was their first actual collaboration; whatever tone was set now, would most likely mark every occasion on which Aizen would need his orders fulfilled. It was thus crucial that he found a way of communicating with this man, if he was to keep Stark's enforcement of Aizen's orders from turning outright murderous.

'The second family has just buried a child and the third are expecting one - do you truly expect me to relocate these people, in the middle of winter, and with no certainty of shelter...'

'I'd think that is self obvious,' Stark answered, arching an eyebrow. 'Else we would not be having this meeting, which is starting to look and sound dangerously like a debate.'

'Three families...' Ukitake continued, frowning deeply.

'See?' Stark perked. 'Here's that nasty debate vibe that I was mentioning.'

The Arrancar leaned back and looked on, clearly enjoying the effect his brutal interruption had had on the defeated enemy before him. In turn, Ukitake drew another deep breath, and took a step back in frustration.

'Three families cannot be that relevant to you,' he ended, softly but decisively, then once more remained quiet, letting Stark make whatever he chose of his words. 'The entire eastern quarter of the Division grounds is already almost empty and will be yours by the end of the week, as agreed...'

'We are still debating,' Stark replied, the growing resignation in the Shinigami's voice making his eyes glitter in open amusement. 'Besides,' he added, leaning back and stretching, 'it is a matter of principle - you have no power to issue leaves to remain...'

'If my decrees carry no weight,' Ukitake burst, forgetting himself, 'why do you need me to rescind them? Surely, you do not need three worthless pieces of paper annulling the three equally worthless pieces of paper that went before them.'

'Of course not, but there must be some inkling of a method in the madness,' the Arrancar provocatively responded.

Ukitake breathed out, hotly, then looked to the side, seeking to still his temper. Three open books lay on the floor, amid scattered pillows; a half empty glass of wine stood by the foot of the couch, a dark ring of caked fluid showing that it had been there for quite some time, all saying only one thing. The Primera Espada had never employed any method in his entire life. He probably had only theoretical knowledge of what the word meant.

'You have no need for any paperwork from me. You could well have removed those people without my intervention.' Ukitake said, softly, slowly bringing himself to admit that his greatest fear was coming to pass. 'This is personal.'

'Everything is personal,' Stark agreeably smiled; the glint in his eyes, and the light reflecting off the sharp canines of his mask made Ukitake's blood freeze.

Anger rose in his throat, making him feel as if he had been drowning. He had no choice but to collaborate with this man, he reminded himself, no choice...A burning spasm gripped his chest, and it took a miracle of willpower to keep the cough at bay. The Shinigami's breath nonetheless grew shallow, and all traces of colour drained from his cheeks.

He looked up, meeting Stark's glance; the Arrancar was no longer smiling. Instead, he had been gazing at him with predatory anticipation, as if awaiting an outburst.

_If he cannot kill me fast_ , Ukitake bitterly understood, _he will spare no effort to kill me slowly.._

He swallowed dry once more, attempting to subdue anger, but also sorrow and humiliation.

'Is this what it will take?' he tiredly asked.

'Yes,' Stark answered, with a wide grin. 'Yes. Each and every single time.'

They sustained each other's glances for a tense, silent moment longer.

'Please do not make me render a pregnant young woman homeless in the middle of winter,' Ukitake whispered, in a voice that he barely recognised as his own.

Stark leaned back, savouring the first victory of many to come; still, in spite of the fact that he'd clearly obtained what he'd been searching for, he did not hurry to assent.

'This family...' he slowly began, instead. 'Do they mean something to you?'

The Shinigami lowered his glance, bitterly wondering whether an affirmative response would spell disaster for the young family he'd just chosen to shelter. He was tempted to lie, the response almost forming in his mouth, but decided against it just before uttering it. Judging by the Arrancar's expression, he either already knew who the young people were, or he knew he would find out soon enough.

'The man used to be my fourth seated officer, before...' Ukitake answered, slowly.

Stark nodded understandingly, his permissive expression speaking what Ukitake himself did not wish to think - that amid three strangers he'd attempted to help, he had, in the end, helped the only one with whom he'd had a personal stake. The Arrancar did not need to speak the words; a million rebellious excuses formed in Ukitake's mind without prompt. He thought of saying that the couple had wished for a child for over a century; he thought of saying that the young woman had always been overly frail - but none of it, he knew all too well, would make any difference to the Arrancar, who still had the power to refuse him, and probably would, as soon as he thought he'd built his hopes up high enough.

'She's six months along,' Ukitake said, hoping that the shy attempt at a negotiation would not immediately be shot.

The Arrancar did not hurry to answer. He simply contented himself on glancing dreamily to the side for a few excruciatingly long moments, making Ukitake wonder if even this concession was too large to be granted to one so hated.

_Let them stay_ , he pleaded, in his mind. _Let them stay in their home until the child is born - at least that..._

'You will need to rescind the leaves to remain,' the Arrancar said, at long length - so long, in fact, that Ukitake had begun to fear Stark had fallen asleep with his eyes open. 'I do not think that written proof of circumventing direct orders will benefit either of us, once Barragan's lot moves in.'

Ukitake did not raise his glance, and held his breath, feeling unsure of what he'd just been offered, or even if he'd been offered anything at all. Though he'd hardly thought it possible, the moment of reflection had seemed to render Stark's hatred even more stifling, making Ukitake feel as if he'd been breathing in cotton wool.

'You may tell your officer that they can stay until the child is born,' Stark distractedly concluded.

Despite himself, the Shinigami breathed at ease, his reaction visibly causing the Primera no pleasure.

'That's all,' Stark said, once more picking up his book, and pointedly signaling that the meeting was over.

Not knowing how to react to the dismissal, Ukitake lingered with his hand on the handle of the Shouji panel. The tiny victory he'd scored made him feel as if the price had been worth it - in truth, he had not expected that any amount of personal humiliation would buy any of those he'd tried to protect a respite. The only thing that he could assume was that somewhere, in a corner of his mind, the Arrancar had found the cause worthy of a fight.

'Thank...' he instinctively began; Stark's gaze snapped on to his instantly, and was so charged with rage that Ukitake swallowed his words.

'Don't even think it,' the Arrancar hissed, his eyes so full of hate that Ukitake almost wondered if he would leap over the desk to tear out his throat. 'Don't even dare.'

Without even a nod, Ukitake Jūshirō turned and left the room.


	5. Tuesday 1

 

_April 10th_

_Occupation Month 4_

Ukitake Jūshirō supposed he should have found some mental comfort in the fact that spring had returned to Sereitei's gardens, even as the frost that gripped its inhabitants grew deeper and more chilling. At least nature's cycles and rules could not be defeated, the trees in bloom seemed to pointlessly state, and, though he felt poorly, Ukitake had fought to honour their statement by forcing himself out into the tiny gardens of his new home.

He hadn't been allowed his bonsai, or rather, he'd had no time to think of them in the haste in which he'd been relocated. He sighed, thinking they must have been dead by now anyway, then forced himself to draw a deep breath and think of more pleasant things.

His garden had no trees, just an ill kept little pond and a stone pathway that had been overgrown with grass. The pathway ended abruptly inside a solid wall, which made Ukitake assume that the garden itself had once been part of something greater that had been hastily and rather ruthlessly partitioned. Perhaps some sibling inheritance war, he distractedly thought, glancing to the delicate foam of white and pink flowers which was visible over the rough edges of the wall.

Yet another stolen view.

He attempted to shake his head free of this thought as well, but this one stubbornly lingered. How long had it been, Ukitake wondered, since he had had any genuine information about the world outside? he could not remember the last time he'd spoken to anyone who did not belong to his own Division, and, as months had dragged steadily by, even that contact had turned to a vanishing trickle, by fault of his own restricted movement, and because of the Division's growing resentment to the slow exodus of its Eastern Quarter. He still only learned what Aizen thought it useful for any of them to know - rumours of a third decimation at the 8th , when Shunsui had resisted the removal of his people; further retaliation against the 6th, when several high ranking members of the Kuchiki clan, who'd suggested collaboration with the new regime, had refused Byakuya's orders to commit ritual suicide, and taken cowardly refuge with the Katsoumi-Oji…None of them could be verified, of course, no more than the whispers which stated Hisagi Shuuhei's disappearance had given New Central sufficient reasons to take their revenge on the former members of the 9th outside Sereitei's walls.

What strength did these men possess? Ukitake wondered, looking away from the cherry tree, and towards the sky. What measure of courage led them to take such chances with the lives of their subordinates, fail, and then return to chancing? With Kuchiki Byakuya, Ukitake could bring himself to assume that it was a combination of pride and blindness - it was befitting the captain of the 6th that he would never surrender his pride, and make of it the reason to push forward even when it seemed pointless and irrational to do so. Yet, Shunsui could never be suspected of the same; always in the past when Shunsui had chosen to manifest his intelligence and willpower, rather than drown them in barrels of sake, he'd done so in such a stealthy and successful way that he might have proven himself worthy of command of the Secret Mobile Corps. How then did he not see that the situation was hopeless for now, and persisted in actions that clearly endangered the very existence of his Division?

And, furthermore, Ukitake thought, how could Shunsui live with the thought that even his most minor personal failure would have such bloody consequences on others than himself?

He cringed, not at the question, but at the answer he did not wish to reason through.

His own actions had seen to that the 13th Division had fared comparatively better than the rest, with perhaps the notable exceptions of the 4th and the 12th. According to other crumpets of rumours, delivered by those who now insured his guard, the shadow officer, an Arrancar by the name of Granz had raised such a scandal about even the most minor modifications to the Division structures that all plans of removing a single member of either Division had been hastily scuppered.

Aside those two, the 13th had been the only Division not to have a single member executed – and though a large number of them had been removed from both Shinigami ranks and Division grounds, all remained alive and unharmed. The 13th was also the only division who'd had none of its seated officers had been arrested or held, and, perhaps even more importantly, the only one whose newly implanted Arrancar contingents had not done any accidental damage to the civilian districts they'd been entrusted with.

The latter, Ukitake admitted, was not his merit. For all of his pretense of sleepy harmlessness, and for as unlikely of a commander as he made, Stark seemed to have the Arrancar group that had been assigned to him well in hand, and had thus far shown no interest in flexing his newly acquired muscle against anyone but Ukitake himself. He still barely even left the captain's quarters, relying on Lilinette to be his all seeing eye, and only intervening when situations threatened to go out of hand and Hollow hunger could not be sated by even the most reishi charged food.

And then, Ukitake recalled, shivering at the one time when he had actually seen Stark asserting leadership, the lazy Primera transformed into anything but his regular self; the way in which Stark had literally thrashed three of the more powerful and rebellious Arrancar under his hand, bringing them not only to their knees, but also within an inch of their lives, had reminded Ukitake of the way in which hierarchy might have been established in a pack of wolves. No conversation, and no attempts at diplomacy, just bared fangs, claws and the pointed, overbearing confidence of an alpha who could not be challenged by puppies.

Though currying favour after favour on behalf of his own people had taken no little toll on Ukitake, and despite the fact that Stark had stayed true to his word, taking as much as he could from the former Shinigami captain for each single favour that was granted, the 13th Division survived intact. Those who had had been relocated had not been sent outside Sereitei's walls without any means of fending for themselves. It was true, Ukitake thought, swallowing dry, that all those who had been removed had had their zanpakutoh confiscated, and lost parts of their very souls with it, but, unlike those who'd been removed from all the other Divisions, they had had something to head towards. No little pleas and personal humiliation on their former captain's behalf had brought them time to prepare a small area of West Rukongai as residence. The land had been cleared and tilled, and small houses had been erected; most of all, Ukitake had desperately attempted to make sure that the exodus of the 13th would not see families split to the four winds, as the painful exodus of the 7th had.

His people were alive, Ukitake had told himself then; his people were alive, and still together - and as long as there was life, and family, there was still hope...Hope itself was a form of resistance, perhaps the most powerful of all...Why then, the man wondered, did he find himself wishing that he'd been possessed of the same reckless resolve that seemed to animate Byakuya and Shunsui? Why did he look in the eyes of those of his Division who still remained, and feel that they would rather have lost their lives, than their weapons and souls?

_The dead carry no swords,_ he struggled to remind himself. For however rationally true, the notion remained abstract and intangible, and failed to bring even the most minute trace of comfort. His chest began to hurt; not the familiar twinge of an attack approaching, but something well other, sorrow so deep that it translated into physical heartache and nausea.

_Aizen is right_ , Ukitake thought. _The heavens are empty. Even more so now, that it is us, the unworthy and lost, who is pretending to fill them._

He looked back to the tree, hoping that the blankness in his mind and the sight of its blossoms would bring some measure of peace; he found pink staring intently back at him.

How long Lilinette had been sitting cross legged on the fence, he didn't know. When she wanted to, the girl could make her reiatsu completely silent, which, Ukitake assumed, both her and Stark found extremely useful when Lilinette eavesdropped on everyone and everything that moved. Oddly enough, however, and in spite of the fact that the young Arrancar had been staring at him as if she'd been trying to read his mind, his mood immediately softened.

It was, he thought, that no matter what he'd rationally learned about Lilinette, he still perceived her as a child. The internalization of the fact that she was literally part of Stark's soul had failed to occur, and was not helped by the fact that upon closer observation, the two entities manifested so differently that it was all but impossible to feel they were one.

Where Stark seemed to have no curiosity for interaction with anyone but Lilinette herself, the girl seemed happy to talk to everyone and everything. She spoke to all of the Arrancar, and seemed to even have made some connection with the more loosely supervised of Shinigami children. Ukitake could have even sworn he'd seen her attempting to communicate with a squirrel once, by hanging upside down in a tree and chirping back at the creature that scornfully chirped at her, after a half an hour chase. She had an amount of energy that would have put anyone to shame, and moved at the speed of lightning, but was eerily capable of steady, unpleasantly adult concentration at the precise moment when she needed it.

As clearly, she thought she needed it now.

Ukitake shifted uncomfortably under her stare, but, though his smile was tired, it was also earnest.

'Hello again,' he said, shyly waving his fingers in her direction, and feeling unsure of himself. He'd not interacted directly with her after Karakura, although he would often sense her presence on the rare occasions when he met Stark. He supposed that the Primera did all in his power to keep her away from him, and he did not grudge it. In Stark's stead, he would have cautiously kept his soul away from one who had harmed it before as well.

'Heya,' the girl conversationally replied, her focus not faltering for a single second.

'What are you doing up there?' Ukitake asked, standing up and cautiously heading towards the wall, as if he'd worried the curious little thing would be startled and run off at the first abrupt movement.

He should have remembered better - she didn't even blink. Instead, she leaned a bit forward on the edge of the wall, for a moment looking as if she'd been about to lose whatever precarious balance she held and fall flat on her face - that did not happen either. Lilinette waited until he'd been about two feet away, then, to much of Ukitake's amazement, she leaned even further in, effectively resting all her weight on her frail arms.

'I'm lookin' at ya and tryin' to hate ya very, very much,' she answered, making him stop short. Not at the words themselves, but at the childishly frustrated tone in which they'd been uttered.

'Oh?' he chuckled, despite himself. 'And how's that working out for you?'

'Not too good...erm, well, I guess,' Lilinette frowned. 'Is it good or well?' she earnestly inquired.

' _Well_ ,' Ukitake said.

'Hm,' she shrugged, not sounding thoroughly convinced.

'Do you think it would help if I sat down?' the Shinigami asked - half because he wanted to asses her reaction, but also half because he was suddenly feeling dizzy with even the brief exertion.

'Ya were sitting down most of the time _before_ and it didn't work, but, I dunno,' she replied. 'Who knows, maybe it will work from up close.'

He sat in the shadow of the wall, looking up. He could smell the flowers that were just behind her, and, not caring for the fact that the deep breath would doubtlessly be painful, he inhaled eagerly; much as he'd feared, he coughed - mercifully, though it brought tears to his eyes, the spasm was brief.

Lilinette did not move, and, for a few long minutes, they sat in silence that was perfectly comfortable.

'If it still doesn't work,' Ukitake awkwardly offered, his voice still raspy from the cough, 'I think I have a lot of hatred for myself that you could borrow. As long as you give it back a bit later.'

'Yuh,' the girl agreed, oddly enough seeming to grasp both the joke, and the bitter truth that lied beneath it.

'You do know that it was me...' he softly began, suddenly sensing an eerie, pained vibration in her reiatsu. She'd meant it, he thought – their brief encounter over Karakura had carried no amount of personal malice, from her side, but now, she'd probably learned the truth. Yet, for the gods knew how long, she'd been sitting on the wall, looking at him, actively trying to hate him, and apparently failing.

'Yeah, I know _now_ , but I still don't remember!' Lilinette furiously exclaimed, swiftly settling the issue, and sending out a wave of reiatsu so powerful that the too tall grass in the garden swayed, and a startled rain of soft, white petals fell from the tree behind her. 'I dunno why all of y'all keep telling me this, it really don't work if I can't remember shit...'

' _Doesn't_ ,' Ukitake said.

'What?' she asked, her fury quickly subsiding to confusion.

'Doesn't work,' he patiently corrected, then shrugged apologetically. Lilinette's pink, rounded eye narrowed, threatening storms.

'Your garden sucks,' she immediately spat, as if it had been the worse insult that had popped to her brain. She considered it for a moment. 'That was lame,' she admitted, mostly to herself. 'It's still true tho', your garden does suck!' Lilinette quickly reiterated, noticing that, despite his best efforts, Ukitake had not managed to stifle a smile.

'I guess,' the Shinigami admitted, taking a more attentive look around, and noticing that the grass was almost as tall as he was, sitting down. 'Yes,' he conceded, with a shrug. 'I think you're right, this garden really does suck.'

Lilinette seemed pleased at the fact that he'd borrowed her vocabulary, and nodded in stern approval, before resuming her unsettling scrutiny.

'So why don't ya do something about it, huh?' she asked, out of the blue. 'Your other garden - well, now, our garden - is much nicer, and the people say you always took care of it all by yourself. Or what?' she shot. 'Ya too scared, all of a sudden?'

'Of what?' Ukitake frowned, this time in honest confusion.

'Dunno,' the girl frowned, in turn. 'How would I know? After all that yellin' at _me_ with _that's the spirit!_ an' stuff, you're acting like you're so scared of everything. I wouldn't be surprised if ya said you're scared of some tall grass too.'

The statement hit him as if it had been a punch to the chest, but he did not have time to react; cursing profusely, Lilinette fell forward from the fence, giving him the sensation that she would fall on top of him. He instinctively braced, but his reaction was not needed; the girl vanished a foot before hitting the ground, then reappeared, facing in the same direction as he was.

'Fucking hell, Apache!' she yelled, rubbing the back of her head, and showing that her sudden loss of balance had not been accidental; behind her, Ukitake winced at her choice of words.

'Dude!' another girl laughed, from beyond the wall. 'You're like a sitting duck.'

'That's cuz I was sittin'!' Lilinette yelped, darting upwards, to peer over the wall. 'What's the big idea?'

A tuft of disorderly dark hair and a pair of odd-coloured eyes appeared briefly, to give Ukitake a short and utterly disdainful glance.

'Your Shinigami is a woos,' the other girl stated, in no uncertain terms, as if three seconds of eye contact with Ukitake had been sufficient for her to judge him completely. He cringed. In turn, Lilinette looked questioningly over her shoulder, as if expecting him to react in some way - Ukitake avoided her glance, and, a second of intense scrutiny later, Lilinette drifted rapidly upwards, intending to give chase to her assailant.

'It's a girl,' she said, abruptly stopping in mid-air, but no longer looking over her shoulder.

'Who?' the Shinigami asked, in a small voice.

'The kid of the family ya wanted to keep here.' Lilinette continued. 'She came a bit early, but people are saying she's fine and her momma is fine. An' she yells louder than I did when I dropped a rock on my foot last week. The baby, not the momma,' she clarified, after a moment of consideration.

Her accusing glance shot through to his soul.

'Just thought ya'd wanna know,' she said, before vanishing.

A storm of white petals danced in her wake.


	6. Tuesday 2

 

__Tuesday, April 10th_ _

_Occupation Month 4_

* * *

She tiredly pushed the instrument to the side, yet again wondering at the fact that a thing so small could be so truly heavy, then pulled her notes close. She felt along the table for a pen, only truly looking up when she could not find one on hand.

The door of the laboratory was furiously knocked aside, the sudden, direct light making her lift her hand to shelter her eyes; the compound she had been staring at was mildly fluorescent, and, if Szayel Aporro was to be believed, it would literally glow once the reaction they - or rather, he alone - had been hoping for would occur. Her eyes had gotten accustomed to the darkness to such an extent that she supposed direct exposure to the even the bland lighting in the corridor might have been painful. Still, she was not been fully exposed to it - a thin, familiar shadow stretched over her, offering unexpected protection.

'What happened?' she asked, yet again rubbing her eyes, but managing a smile.

After months of working side by side with Szayel Aporro Granz, the least she had learned was how to differentiate a fit of artificial hysterics from a bout of genuine anger. The former, Unohana knew, was invariably accompanied by shrieking in a very high pitched voice, and threats of life-long torture upon any creature that happened across his path. The latter materialised as silent, but very poignant fuming, and absolute silence.

As if seeking to confirm her thoughts, the Octava did not immediately respond. Instead, he shut the door behind him with as much rage as he'd employed opening it. He let himself fall heavily at the table opposite hers, but set the box of specimens he'd been carrying under his arm down with gentleness ill befitting the storm in his reiatsu.

'It is not fair,' he pitifully whined, raising his glance towards the ceiling. 'Sooooo unfair!'

Unohana brought her folded fingers to her lips and chuckled lightly. Despite herself, she found Szayel Aporro's whining amusing every time - if anything, she thought, the Arrancar was as creative in describing the many various ways in which the Universe chose to stint his intellectual growth as he was with his circuits and chemicals.

'What happened?' she gently inquired, tilting her head to the side to indicate that she'd meant no disrespect. Not that the gesture was actually needed - the glance Szayel Aporro had shot had not reflected even a minute trace of anger, but rather had made him look as if he'd been about to burst into tears at any second.

'Something or someone exploded at the base of Sokyouku Hill; I cannot be bothered to waste brain space on the details,' the Octava surrendered, smirking in disgust. 'And, of course, as if I had nothing better to do...'

'Another explosion?' Unohana breathed, then cringed at her unpardonable lack of control; her heart, so at ease but a few seconds earlier, had suddenly jumped to her throat. Such events had been growing more frequent in recent weeks, in sign that Sereitei was beginning to recover its courage. Alas, the woman thought, sensing that a shadow of frustration had passed through her eyes, it was far from recovering its footing.

'Yees,' Szayel Aporro sneered; she hadn't had time to ascertain whether or not her lapse had gone unnoticed. She's simply seen a sharp gleam of light across the Octava's mask, before the Arrancar jumped to his feet, and started to pace.

'You see, Re-chan,' he began, in a tone that pleaded for sympathy, 'I am currently being held hostage by two armies of incompetents: one resides outside these walls, and sees fit to stage pitifully addled attempts that seem to blow up no one but the person who is carrying the explosives. The other resides inside these walls, and sees fit to have me, the single functioning brain of the establishment, wasting my valuable mind - not to mention, the priceless resources of this laboratory on something that does not, nor shall at any time soon, constitute a credible threat to anything but itself...Aaaah, I am surrounded by idiots! Except you, of course, Re-chan,' he added, in a surprising, sensuous purr.

Though she knew his compliments to be honest, and normally accepted them without false modesty, this time, Unohana had to force herself to smile.

She knew she owed him much; much more, in fact than she had ever expected she would obtain from a single, random act of kindness. And it hadn't even been that, Unohana had to admit to herself; she did not even know if, more than six months before, after her return from Hueco Mundo, she'd extracted Szayel Aporro Granz from Mayuri Kurosutchi's _tender_ care because she had intended to be kind towards the Hollow, or simply because Mayuri's actions had caused her to feel so much disgust, that she'd finally used her influence on Yamamoto to secure the Arrancar's relative freedom.

For the few weeks that had preceded Aizen's surprising, and lightning fast victory over the Gotei contingent in Karakura Town and the Spirit King, she'd attempted to make use of Szayel's knowledge in the best way she knew how - at first, by keeping him in a reiatsu sealed container, but then, as her confidence and genuine appreciation of his technical medical skills grew, by fitting him with a reiatsu suppressor as powerful as the one that had been given to Zaraki Kenpachi and allowing him about the grounds of the 4th Division. She had initially hoped that the Arrancar would eventually yield information about Aizen's stronghold in Las Noches, but had reckoned that if Mayuri's interrogation techniques had done nothing to make Szayel Aporro surrender a single morsel of useful information, continuing along the same track would probably lead to the same result. She'd thought that building the Arrancar's confidence in her, little by little, would be a wiser choice, and she'd been surprised to find out that as long as he was continuously challenged, Szayel Aporro Granz kept less grudges than a five week old kitten.

The true shock had only followed after Aizen's occupation of Sereitei had come into effect. Mayuri Kurosutchi had, predictably, been killed on the first hour of the first day, but though Unohana had half expected she would immediately follow, she, as well as all those under her command, had been left unscathed, with not even the most minor hint at any reprisals.

It was likely that the Octava had only been so protective of his new domain because he regarded it as his playground, and had as much regard for people as he did for other laboratory _resources_ ; it nonetheless remained true that Szayel would clearly rather lose a finger than harm a piece of equipment that he considered useful…and could not recreate, she conceded, still cringing at the first time that he'd seen him eating Lumina, then trying to remember what _current_ _version_ the poor creature was on.

As for herself, the woman thought, by the way in which she was treated, she must have been the most precious resource of all; but for the fact that after Aizen's victory, Szayel had sometimes begun addressing her in familiar, his behavior towards her had not altered at all, and she had perceived none of the loss of authority that Aizen had probably wanted. Quite to the contrary, the intended integration of the 4th and the 12th had enhanced her domain, and, within weeks, the previously forbidden grounds of Mayuri Kurosutchi's division had become as familiar to her as those of the 4th .

The surreal semblance of peace had come to an end when she'd learned of Aizen's intention of combining Hollow and Shinigami reiatsu on a large scale. The idea had terrified and nauseated her – not even he, Unohana had thought, would be callous enough to so thoroughly muddy the separation lines of the cycle and mangle the laws of nature. Soul Society created souls; Hueco Mundo compressed them by Hollow hunger, and none could predict the consequences of either mechanism's absence. It was enough that the human world had been left to its own devices while Aizen himself set about creating his unnatural new society in splendid isolation. This new idea hinged on madness…

But then…

In the aftermath of the initial shock, Unohana Retsu had gathered her courage, and coolly set about counting the few weapons she still possessed, with enforced mental detachment; refusal was not an option. Humanised Arrancar displayed clear sexual dimorphism, and though it was unclear whether they could reproduce, there was no shortage of means by which the theory could be put to the test. The only reason why Aizen would not have outright let the Segunda's legions run rampant across Sereitei was probably the fact that he was seeking to deal with one aspect of the world at a time, and did not wish to antagonize his newly found friends, the Shihouin, while he still needed them compliant. He wished to keep this endeavor secret, until he could be sure of its success – his project would, therefore, be confined to the 12th and Szayel Aporro, leaving Unohana an unexpected path of resistance.

Oddly, and for however despicable and mindless she'd found Aizen's intent, Unohana had not found it in herself to grudge Szayel Aporro's ghastly enthusiasm in setting about the task. His excitement at the new challenge was bigger than for any other problem she'd seen him face thus far, be it medical, technological or chemical, but then the challenge itself was something that most others – with Urahara Kisuke's notable exception - would have found unapproachable. Underneath his mask of flamboyant theatrics, she could tell that Szayel Aporro had been genuinely happy, and immediately assumed that her own enthusiasm was as powerful as his. He'd enlisted her to the task without a second thought, and for her side, Unohana had carefully steered clear of antagonizing him, while continuously struggling to invent as many technical challenges as she could think of.

The contest, she had to admit, lowering her glance to disguise a smile, had been a bit rigged in her favour from the very beginning, for the mechanism of Szayel Aporro's psychotic pathology, which had presented no interest to Kurosutchi, but that she had found immediately fascinating, was simple and correct _._ His exaggerated theatrics, but also the charm he could and would manifest on occasion were both symptoms of the same ailment, and meant to disguise the same simple truth; Szayel Aporro physically had no emotions, and, in turn, could truly not read emotions. His minimal ability of manifesting assertiveness or empathy where others were concerned was the result of his quantifiable knowledge of psychology, and an exceptionally fast mind – he'd taught himself to react to others in the same way others might have taught themselves a foreign language.

The advantage of this was the fact that, once understood, Szayel Aporro was remarkably easy to handle; nothing that left his hands could be less than perfect, and perfection itself was divided into three measurable components: elegance, efficiency and comprehensiveness. This simple filtering system had allowed her to field most of his initiatives without posing too much effort, and without making her opposition clear.

In the beginning, Unohana had dryly rejected his initial proposed means, which ranged from live insemination to full in vitro development of initially viable embryos, and patiently explained that Hollow anatomy was too unpredictable to chance any type of early natural crossing. She had then insisted upon all of the things that could technically have gone wrong, leading the too direct experiments to exceed all budgets, Aizen's patience, and ultimately prove inefficient.

Szayel had concluded that she was correct, and that perhaps the most intelligent way in which they could proceed was the way which had already been proven to work; then, the Octava had reasoned out loud, the ask of the problem would change from genetics to engineering, and power generation. Aizen-sama could not be expected to use the Hougyoku on every living Shinigami in Sereitei. The challenge, then would become to create a neutral reiatsu source capable of producing energy above that of an average Shinigami captain – the idea, which had great theoretical chances of working, had caused the woman's blood to truly freeze in her veins. For this, she'd had to take her bearings quickly - and, as the Arrancar had already jumped to a long winded calculation regarding how long it would take for the entirety of Sereitei to pass through the gem, once the generator was in place, she'd sighed and meaningfully looked to the side. It had not taken much more to catch his attention.

'What now?' he'd shrieked, raising his arms in exasperation. 'I've already conceded to your technical difficulties and budget constraints speech, what more hurdles can you possibly raise in my path? The Hogyoku is a viable solution...'

'It is,' she had shrugged.

'What?' Szayel Aporro had asked again, his shoulders slumping pitifully.

'Well,' Unohana had said, shrugging again, 'it will work, but it's still an unnatural means of intervention. Not many will take it of their own free will, and, at least initially, it will make the ethnicity problem far more poignant than it currently is. I doubt that is what Aizen intends.'

'Secondly,' she had followed, noticing that the Arrancar's attention had sharpened, 'your calculations over the duration of all the procedures are slightly...'

He'd drawn a sharp breath, his reiatsu suddenly perking and beginning to dance, in such a predictably menacing way that, under different circumstances, she would have been amused.

'...over optimistic,' Unohana had concluded. 'Even if you do begin work on the reiatsu generator, and your design proves successful, you have no way of guessing how long it will take to recharge it after each transformation. Furthermore, you are not factoring in hybrid stabilisation time...'

'Ha! There is no stabilisation time,' Szayel had triumphantly exclaimed. 'The process is all but instantaneous.'

'For Hollow, yes,' Unohana had said, sweetly. 'For Shinigami, no. For all we know, it has taken the Vaizard over a century to master their hybrid forms. Or - have you empirically observed something that I have missed?'

She'd watched him blush and fret for a few seconds, knowing all too well that he had probably never seen the Hougyoku's application on a Shinigami, but she had not forced an admission. Instead, she'd leaned back in her chair and given him a mischievous glance.

'Plus,' she'd added, 'I feel it is rather too...'

Unohana had grinned, noting that she'd captured his attention well enough for him to gaze at her in hungry expectation.

'...simplistic,' she'd concluded, landing the final blow.

The Hougyoku had never been mentioned again.

Once the most immediate threats had been out of the way, a small genetics lab had been set up, bordering on the grounds of the 4th, and the large number of blood and tissue samples that the 4th Division had collected through the years had been brought to bear. Matching it with an equally comprehensive collection of Arrancar samples had taken Szayel Aporro the better part of a month, and then. To Unohana's joy, once he'd finally been satisfied with his own collection, Szayel himself had begun to wonder whether the two physical tissue types could coexist on the same type of metabolic processes.

'If that is not possible,' she'd agreed, 'I doubt you have any chance of producing any natural crossings.'

'You know, Re-chan,' Szayel had muttered, academically adjusting his glasses, 'most means of assisted reproduction have at some point or another been considered unnatural…'

'Indeed,' the woman had approved. 'On the other hand, societies where offspring are exclusively produced out of a test tube can scarcely be called cohesive. Your solution,' she'd shrugged, 'does not appear to _comprehensively_ answer Aizen-sama's intent _._ '

He'd considered the words for a moment, crossing his arms behind his back. 'Correct,' Szayel Aporro had admitted. 'Hm.' He'd added, before turning away.

With new criteria set, Szayel Aporro had set upon the issue with more of his ghastly enthusiasm, disappearing into the laboratory for days at a time, and making what Unohana had initially deemed as frightening progress. He'd soon managed to isolate the physical components of both Shinigami and Arrancar anatomies from the purely spiritual ones, then methodically proceeded to grafting them to each other using the reiatsu as catalyst – yet, that was where his progress had halted.

The samples that Szayel Aporro had passed to her for confirmation, samples much like the one that lied underneath her microscope's lenses now, always behaved along two predictable empirical paths, regardless of what kind of nutrient or energy had been used for catalyst.

It was always either the Shinigami cells burning away the Hollow ones, or the Hollow consuming the Shinigami cells, without preserving any trace of their genetic make-up – even under a magnifying glass, the two races continued to wage war on each other, in a natural order which remained blissfully unconcerned with Aizen's folly.

Once fully confirmed, proof of this natural barrier would severely disappoint Aizen, and while Unohana's heart had rejoiced, her mind had found Szayel's logical and politically unconcerned approach to the issue equally pleasant. From his own, purely scientific perspective, the Octava needed to know whether his mandate was _possible,_ and he would have no qualms in telling his superior that it was not, if he himself was thoroughly convinced.

Still, Szayel Aporro Granz was rarely easily convinced of anything, and his new question had consumed him to such an extent, that, without the occasional New Central summons, he might not have noticed if the world burst out in flames around him.

It hadn't. Or, Unohana thought, at least not yet.

'What is the ask?' she queried, slowly standing up and gently opening the specimen box he'd brought into the room.

'What's the usual ask?' The Arrancar rhetorically inquired. 'They cannot define such a thing as _an ask_ \- the farthest their addled brains will take them is: Solve the problem! Find the source!'

She chuckled, letting him know that his explanation was insufficient from any number of perspectives, and Szayel Aporro unwillingly shuffled over, watching as she extracted vial after vial of what looked like blood, shattered bones, but also two containing minute traces of gleaming liquids.

'According to previously collected data,' he began to explain, 'Rukongai used to house a doubtlessly ham-fisted explosive maker - Shiba Kukkaku, I believe. The Omnitskido thought that they had dealt with her, in the wake of the first few explosions, but, apparently, someone else has stepped up to fill the part of needless drains on my time...'

'You know, Szayel Aporro,' Unohana dreamily said, picking up one of the vials which contained gleaming liquids, and glancing at it in the light, 'you should be the first to acknowledge that a laboratory explosion does not necessarily kill all those within it.'

The sting did not pass unnoticed; Szayel's eyes narrowed a little, and he smirked condescendingly.

'Quite so,' he purred, 'but I, for one, shall let the Omnitskido chase their tails in determining whether this Kukkaku is alive or not. The issue is not of the most minor interest to us.'

He shuffled to the other side of the table, and adjusted his glasses.

_Good gods_ , Unohana thought, suddenly falling prey to other, very immediate concerns. _Has he already understood that..._

'This is not of her making,' Szayel Aporro said, dryly.

'How can you possibly arrive at that conclusion so fast?' Unohana frowned, feeling that her heart was beating at the base of her throat.

'Ah, where others might take weeks, I require but a few minutes,' Szayel merrily beamed. 'Since it would appear as if I cannot evade this new annoyance, I passed by the 12th's archives before I came here, and I took a cursory glance at the explosives that were recovered after the ryoka invasion – an approach which might have occurred to any creature in possession of a cerebral cortex, but one which I am woefully ready to admit, must seem novel to the Omnitskido...How the world offends me,' he heart-wrenchingly sighed.

'Szayel Aporro,' Unohana scolded. 'To the point…?'

He huffed in theatrical aggravation, but then offered her an honest half-shrug.

'The two types of charges have nothing to do with each other. Shiba Kukkaku,' he continued, 'was a fireworks manufacturer _at best_. Her compounds lacked subtlety, and were clearly designed to break through walls, while causing an inordinate amount of smoke, and, I am assured, rubble.'

He shuddered at the thought.

Unohana tilted her head to the side questioningly.

'But it is elementary, my dear Re-chan,' Szayel Aporro answered. 'The two types of charges are completely different in both functionality and make-up. She relied on conventional explosives and fuses; by comparison, these seem to employ some delicate chemical catalyst, the balance of which seems to evade our inept, but mildly creative would-be bomb maker. And, more importantly, the thing that _everyone_ could have noticed with a mere sniff, and without employing any delicate technical decomposition process, is that these compounds, whatever they are, are reiatsu neutral. Shiba Kukkaku's little fizzly things were not. You may, indeed, be in awe,' he proclaimed, noticing that Unohana had paled.

The woman recovered quickly, and smiled.

'So, what is the plan?' she asked.

'Prepare the specimens, then start poking at them in a controlled environment,' Szayel Aporro sighed, his shoulders slumping pitifully. 'Whatever I start with, however, I must first replicate these two...substances,' he added, taking the vial out of Unohana's hand and picking the other one up at the same time. 'There is not nearly enough of either to form the basis of any conclusive testing. I'll then run them through a spectrograph to see what exactly they are - all in all, monkey work upon monkey work! It will take me the entire night!' he suddenly shrieked. 'As if that is what I should be doing, when I am standing on the edge of greatness!'

'Are you, now?' the woman inquired, disguising her mounting concern as irony.

He suddenly fell quiet and fidgeted.

'Szayel Aporro?' Unohana asked, when his response tarried. The Arrancar looked at her over the frames of his glasses, and she felt a twinge of fright at the lack of any display of artificial emotion. 'Are you making progress?'

'I thought I was,' Szayel dryly responded. 'Not enough progress to demonstrate,' he muttered, with a sincere apologetic ring to his voice. 'Now, with further idiotic delays…'

She could sense his sorrow, and withheld a sigh. 'Can I help?' the woman inquired, softly. 'If you want to focus on _our_...'

She hesitantly gestured towards the microscope.

The Octava genuinely pondered the bait.

'Is forensics within your area of expertise?' he asked, arching an eyebrow.

'No,' Unohana chuckled. 'But I can definitely multiply a given sample and run some spectrograph readings. Said monkey work,' she ended, with a wink. 'The raw data should be ready for you in the morning.'

'That is so generous of you!' the Octava chirped, clapping once to express the fact that he was overjoyed.

'It is settled, then,' Unohana replied; not willing to give him even the most minor chance of changing his mind, she decisively took the two vials out of his hands, then headed over to a different corner of the laboratory.

Though her heart was tiny and stung, she still cringed at the familiar noise of him opening the zip of his uniform sleeve, and then rolling it up; for a brief moment, the thought of the two vials and the sample under the microscope vanished from her mind.

'Szayel Aporro,' she gently said, not turning around. 'If you are tired, you should sleep.'

'Ah, but being tired is what we are trying to prevent,' he mumbled, his voice stifled by the fact that he held something in his teeth. 'Enough time has been wasted already…'

She placed the two vials in a stand, then sighed, wondering why she had uttered the words. If anything, she should have been pleased by the fact that his next few gestures would grant her an unexpected amount of freedom. Still, she spun around just in time to hear the hiss of the tiny hydraulic syringe, and see it become empty in less than a fraction of a second.

The inside of Szayel Aporro's right elbow was blackened by tens of tiny punctures, caused by repeated administration of the same intravenous injection; another, with less regeneration power would have torn their veins open weeks ago. She cringed at the sight, as she always did, but did not get the time to say anything else. Szayel Aporro softly slumped back in the chair - his tonic, something he'd devised alone and which kept him permanently awake, caused him a few seconds of drowsiness before the main effect kicked in.

Whatever else the Arrancar might have been, he was doubtlessly one of the most intellectually endowed and dedicated creatures she had ever encountered; his skill at everything he touched was undeniable, and worthy of at least respect.

Beyond that, and regardless of how much their roles had changed since she'd first laid eyes on him, she could sometimes only see him as the frightened, frail and thoroughly helpless _thing_ he'd been during the time it had taken her to wean him off Kurosutchi's enhancer drug.

In her heart, which she'd oddly learned she could distance from her mind and other interests, Unohana had already found that she could not blame the Octava for his terrifying lack of empathy more than she could have blamed an amputee for a missing limb.

She shook herself free of the incomprehension as to why he felt so desperately compelled to compliment his intelligence with inhuman amounts of effort, and more pointedly as to why she felt the need of stopping him every time he abused himself in such ways.

The answer, she supposed, was not relevant now. Unohana drew a deep breath, and once more turned to the vials. Before placing them in the replicator, however, she took a quick glance over her shoulder, and took a tiny swab of the vial which glowed blue. Watching that Szayel had not yet come out of his drowsiness, she swiped the swab onto a thin glass pane, and deftly placed it under the microscope, leaning in.

She frowned.

The structure under the lens tore and twisted wildly, and though it was familiar, it did not quite look like it had the last time _she_ 'd seen it.

_The charge is still not stable_ , she thought, feeling her stomach was twisting with despair. _Still not..._

'Anything interesting, Captain Unohana?' Szayel Aporro asked.

She barely contained her start and resisted the urge of straightening like a mechanical arc.

'Only the fact that after all this time, you are the only one who occasionally calls me Captain,' she softly replied.


	7. Wednesday 1

__Wednesday, July 3_ _rd__  

_Occupation Month 6_

* * *

 

'I've taken the liberty of summoning him', Stark said, resting his pointed chin on the back of his hand and dreamily glancing through Ukitake. 'He should arrive shortly.'

The words caught the Shinigami by surprise, and it took him a few seconds to realise what Stark was talking about. He understood it soon enough, however, and it took all of his strength not to recoil.

'You waste no time,' Ukitake noted, in as self assured a voice as he could manage.

'I am an icon of initiative, efficiency and exactitude,' Stark had responded, then yawned as widely as the fangs under his chin allowed, and stretched at his leisure.

Ignoring the open provocation in the Arrancar's eyes, Ukitake advanced towards the center of the room, each of his steps driven by dry anger. Though he found it odd, the additional understanding of Stark's vicious strength he'd gained since the Arrancar contingent had moved in the grounds of the 13th, had made Ukitake feel far more assured around the Primera; it was not only a question of comparable levels of strength, but also one of personality. Thus far, Ukitake not seen Stark strike out in fury, and though the Arrancar's heart might have been on fire with anger, even the pain Stark inflicted again and again on the innocent bystanders of his feud with Ukitake was dealt with a steady hand and mind of ice.

'It did not strike you that you could have given them a few more weeks?' Ukitake inquired, stopping before Stark's couch and awkwardly brushing a few books away with his ankle. The gesture seemed to irritate the Arrancar - his reiatsu flared briefly, but his features remained benignly distracted.

'The child was born almost six weeks ago,' Stark said. 'If anything, it strikes me that you should have kept a better eye on the situation, and reported to me when the child was well enough to travel. Or did your officer have no desire to see you?' he inquired, his eyes sparkling with amusement, and making Ukitake's heart sink.

The Shinigami had shot a reproachful glance at Lilinette, who been sitting on the windowsill, pointedly absenting herself from the conversation and chewing on a blade of grass. The girl was the only possible source of that information; Ukitake's visit to Kotsubaki's cottage could not truly had been witnessed by anyone else, and none of the Arrancar in the vicinity could have come close enough to know that once he'd been reluctantly allowed inside, Ukitake had been barred from seeing either the young child or her mother.

Lilinette briefly met his glance, shrugged, and looked away once more.

'I don't think I can blame him,' Ukitake bitterly said.

'Neither can I,' the Arrancar replied, 'If I were him, I would also expect the worst of you. Still, I think on this particular occasion he will have to indulge you. We had an agreement, Ukitake Jūshirō - that they may stay until the child is born. They have stayed longer than that, as proof of the fact that you are as good at avoiding the truth as you are at stalling, but they may stay no longer. Given the fact that you and your former officer seem to have some difficulties communicating, I've summoned him here so that you can tell him that.'

Ukitake's lower jaw tensed. 'Privacy would be appreciated,' he said, with a distinguishable menacing undertone. The thought of finally having to tell Kotsubaki that he would have to leave already filled him with dread; the perspective of having to do it under Stark's amused glance further filled his mouth with bile.

'Are you trying to kick me out of my office?' Stark asked, innocently raising both eyebrows.

It was Lilinette who looked to Ukitake this time, her rounded eye filled with the same odd expectation as it had been on the day of their encounter with Apache. Still, though he felt furious enough to do something completely uncharacteristic, and actually take a swing at the Arrancar, Ukitake knew all too well what was expected of him and fell in line.

'Kotsubaki doesn't deserve this humiliation,' the Shinigami said, slowly. 'And whether I am forced to tell him in private, or in public, my own humiliation will not be lessened. Why do you...?'

'Three reasons,' Stark answered, making some attempt at sitting up straight. 'The first is, of course, that myself and Lilinette will enjoy the sight. The second is that I truly wish to impress upon you the fact that the only things you get past us,' the Primera continued, giving Ukitake the distinct impression that his notion of us had nothing to do with Aizen or any other Arrancar, 'are the things we allow you to get past us.'

He stopped abruptly, as if he'd forgotten his train of thought.

'He needs to leave today or tomorrow at the latest,' Stark ended. 'Make sure he grasps that...'

'Tomorrow?' Ukitake breathed. 'That will leave me no time to make any sort of arrangement...'

'Yuh, well, if you hadn't been avoiding the issue for a month an' a half, you would've had shitloads of time,' Lilinette spitefully muttered.

'I thought...' Ukitake began, between clenched teeth.

'That I had forgotten about it?' Stark interrupted. 'An easy mistake to make, but a serious one nonetheless. I tend to remember a little bit too much.'

The soft knock on the wooden frame of the Shouji panels reverberated inside Ukitake's head as if it had been an explosion.

'Give us a moment,' he said, loud enough to be heard on the corridor, but with a delay which allowed Kotsubaki to misunderstand the second of silence for permission to enter. The man had already pulled the door half open, when Ukitake had turned around with fires in his eyes. 'I said give us a moment,' he commandingly uttered, in a voice that made the thin silk panes of the door tremble.

He made only short eye contact with Kotsubaki before the door slid back shut, and did not let the look in the man's eyes dull the edge of his anger.

'Give me until the end of the week, Stark,' Ukitake hissed, hoping that his voice did not carry outside into the corridor.

'I am unsure...' Stark began, not taking the same precaution.

'I did not mean to get anything past you,' the Shinigami continued, in a low whisper, 'though I had, indeed, hoped that time would dull the relevance of the issue. I do not want to disarm this man; I do not want to have him removed...'

'Which is precisely why I want both,' the Primera nodded. 'And you should have known that by now...'

'Oh, I know it,' Ukitake responded. 'I am, however, still in denial over the fact that you would obstinately cause willing hardship to an undeserving individual just to spite me.'

'The eastern quarter of your division grounds was assigned to Barragan's...my troop,' Stark angrily responded, finally straightening in full. 'Your officer just happened to live in the wrong place.'

'So you are, yet again, just being diligent?' Ukitake spat.

'And taking ultimate pleasure in it,' Stark answered, jumping to his feet, taking a step forward, and forcing the Shinigami to instinctively acknowledge his intimidating height. Still, though he was forced to look up to meet the Arrancar's gaze, Ukitake did not back down.

'Give me until the end of the week,' he repeated, putting his reiatsu behind his words, but though lightning crackled somewhere in the distance, the oppressive humidity in the room rose at Stark's will.

'To do what, Ukitake Jūshirō?' Stark whispered, in such a low tone that the Shinigami wondered whether even Lilinette had heard it. 'To make sure that this one is nestled as close to the rest of your Division as possible? To arrange that the neatly bundled 13th Division quarters that you are silently growing in West Rukongai are not leaderless? You've been stalling because you had hoped you will get time to share your intent with your officer, but he's been blindly obstinate in not wanting to see you, while you've felt watched and feared to press.'

Ukitake let out a ragged breath.

'Do you think that I do not see what you are doing, Shinigami?' the Arrancar asked. 'The strength of your troops only half relies on their swords; the rest resides in their links to each other, and if you could not preserve the former, you did your damned best to preserve the latter. You have been subtle - so subtle, in fact, that I think your people don't understand what you are attempting, and they will not understand it for a very long time. Perhaps they will never understand it. And I won't give you the time to explain yourself. Especially to this one.'

'He has until tomorrow.' Stark ended, in a low growl. 'Make yourself clear.'

'Come in,' he called, letting himself fall back on his couch, and allowing the pressure of his reiatsu to dissipate as if it had never been, but not giving Ukitake any time to recover.

Though Kotsubaki entered immediately after permission had been granted, Ukitake's gaze lingered onto Stark's for a few seconds longer - in confusion, or frustration, or simple, pure fright; in turn, Stark simply extended his arm to the side, bidding Lilinette closer, and, despite a minute hesitation, she joined him on the couch. As soon as she'd sat, the Primera had wrapped his arms around her, and rested his chin on top of her mask, then coolly lifted his eyebrows, prompting Ukitake to action.

'We don't have all day,' Stark quietly mouthed.

The Shinigami felt as if he'd been drowning.

The few seconds it had taken for him to turn around had felt like an eternity.

'Gods of nothing, Lilinette,' he'd heard Stark whisper behind him. 'Gods of nothing at all.'

If the Arrancar's words had felt as if he'd been submerged into a river of molten lava, meeting Kotsubaki's glance had felt as if he'd been cast into a frozen lake, and for as much as Ukitake had sought to find something, anything of what he'd hoped to see in his officer's eyes - not sympathy, but perhaps, merciful indifference - he'd found nothing. Kotsubaki's eyes held naught but fury and despise.

'I...'Ukitake began, finding that his voice had frozen along with his heart.

'Get it over with,' Kotsubaki cut in, proudly lifting his chin. 'We all know why I am here.'

'Kotsubaki Sentaro,' Ukitake heard himself say, 'by edict of the New Central, your tenure as Shinigami is to be terminated immediately. As such, you will surrender your zanpakutoh and be asked to vacate your allotted premises on Sereitei grounds by the evening of the fourth of July.'

'Wow,' Stark conspicuously whispered, 'it came out all in one!'

Lilinette shushed him audibly, but the words had reached their intended target already. Ukitake breathed out deeply, and closed his eyes, counting the seconds and awaiting some form of divine reprieve - from the sharp irony at the Arrancar at his back, or from the cold despise of the Shinigami before him...

Kotsubaki lingered with his hand on the hilt of his sword; for a moment, the hatred which vibrated in his reiatsu overtook even Stark's.

'Is this it, then?' he asked; Ukitake glanced up pleadingly, but, when he spoke, his voice was cutting and dry.

'Yes,' he answered.

Kotsubaki nodded, pursing his lips, then slowly, his eyes never leaving Ukitake's, slipped the sword out of its place on his right hip and held it out straight, almost daring his former captain to reach for it. Ukitake's hand trembled, but his overly thin fingers wrapped themselves decisively about the wooden scabbard.

Kotsubaki Sentaro did not let go.

'You would take my zanpakutoh, on behalf of that?' he asked, indicating Stark and Lilinette with a swift motion of his bearded chin.

'I have no choice,' Ukitake breathed. 'We have...'

He cut himself off, and looked to the side, avoiding his officer's unspoken question. Not because he had not had an answer to it, but because he knew the answer all too well.

_There is no we left,_ Ukitake thought. _There is no 13th, and he thinks it is me who has made the choice to disband it._

'Please let go, Sentaro,' he whispered, this time in an open plea. Kotsubaki did, and his sword oddly felt too heavy to hold.

Without adding a further word, the officer turned to leave. A flurry of thoughts and feelings rose to Ukitake's mind and heart, the latter almost stifling the former.

'Most of the 13th have found West Rukongai...' Ukitake suddenly began, taking a step forward; behind him, Stark stirred abruptly, but he did not care - Kotsubaki glanced over his shoulder, and the very glance that Ukitake had been praying for stopped him in his tracks.

'Most of the 13th?' the officer growled, turning around at great speed and taking a step forward in his turn. 'You mean the others that you have rendered homeless and soulless for a Hollow that's pulling your strings like those of some pitiful puppet?"?'

'The New Central...' Ukitake started, in a shaky voice.

'Yes, the New Central!' Kotsubaki exclaimed. 'Did they offer you your zanpakutoh at the price of ours?'

'No,' the white haired Shinigami answered. 'No.'

'Then what could they possibly have offered you, in exchange for all...'

'Have you not heard what happened in the 8th and the 6th?' Ukitake exploded, not caring for the fact that Stark had stood, and Lilinette's reiatsu was flaring as hot as the sun. 'Do you not understand...'

'Oh but I do understand,' Kotsubaki hissed. 'I understand that the 6th and the 8th died with their honour, while you never even left us the choice of dying with ours. I understand that you are a coward, and you think us all cowards as well - it's the only way you could have brought this shame on us!'

'That is not...' Ukitake attempted.

The other shook his head, and left, without once glancing over his shoulder.

'Sentaro...,' the white haired Shinigami whispered.

'Spare me,' Kotsubaki said, once more shaking his head in disgust. 'I used to think that I would follow you into hell,' he added, softly and regretfully. 'Now, I am only happy that Kyione is not here to see what you have become. It would have broken her heart.'

The Shouji panel slid furiously shut, the dry noise marking the beginning of an eternity of silence. Long minutes in which Ukitake could think and feel no more than his own next pained breath stretched one after the other, equally endless and pointless. His shoulders bent under the height of the world, Ukitake found the strength to look over his shoulder, but not the strength to speak.

'You may,' Stark shrugged.

Ukitake headed for the door.

'No, wait,' Lilinette suddenly said.

As if awaiting naught else than a whiplash, Ukitake straightened and looked at her.

'Ya did't tell him the third reason,' Lilinette surprisingly bit - not at himself, Ukitake noted, in astonishment, but at Stark. The Primera clenched his lower jaw into a tight square.

'Lilinette,' he warningly hissed.

'No,' she calmly uttered. 'Ya didn't tell him...'

'And I do not intend to,' Stark muttered, leaving Ukitake stunned at the fact that, for that mere second, the roles of the two seemed to have naturally reversed, with Stark emitting an odd vibe of childish rebellion, and Lilinette holding steadfast.

The little girl looked towards the Espada in the same punishingly expectant way as she had at Ukitake, but a few moments earlier. Stark breathed out heavily, and turned away, nervously raising his palm, as if attempting to block her out.

'Fine,' Lilinette said. 'Then I'm gonna tell him.'

'It makes no difference,' Ukitake tiredly interrupted, not knowing whether he had done so because he'd been trying to protect himself from more cruel barbs or because he'd found hard to keep standing.

She frowned, tilting her head to the side. In turn, the Shinigami shook his head.

_No more of this_ , he pleaded in his mind. _Just let me go_.

'It truly makes no difference anymore,' Ukitake smiled.

Stark looked over his shoulder with something that resembled satisfaction, and, without giving Lilinette a chance to respond, Ukitake pulled the door closed behind him.


End file.
